9.10.10 Becoming a Man of the Spirit

I am still working my way through Bob Beltz "Becoming a man of..." series. Half way through Becoming a Man of the Spirit today, I want to share a point he brings to light.

"Understanding the flesh leads us naturally to learning how to identify when we are operating out of it...The processing unit God has built into each of our lives to help us understand, identify and then decide which state we will respond to, is the mind....God has created us with the capacity to be self-conscious."

Romans 8:5 "Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires."

Colossians 3:2 "Set your minds on things above."

"Here is a simple reminder of the three steps we take to walk in the Spirit:

Step 1: Understand. Understand the feelings, desires, and behaviors that originate out of the Spirit and those that are products of the flesh. (Galatians 5)
Step 2: Identify: At any given moment, be able to identify which nature your promptings are coming from and which nature you are responding to.
Step 3: Decide. Choose to say no to the flesh and yes to the Spirit. Set your mind."



"Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God." John 3:5

Under His Wings

I found a new (old) hymn to love today. I really needed to hear it today too! God is always right on time to remind us we can trust Him!

Under His Wings by William O. Cushing 1896

Reminds me of my favorite Psalm...91

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^a]">

² I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust."

³ Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

⁷ A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.

⁸ You will only observe with your eyes
and see the punishment of the wicked.

⁹ If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge-

¹⁰ then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

¹¹ For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;

¹² they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

¹³ You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

¹⁴ "Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

¹⁵ He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation."

The Prodigal God Part 3 - The elder brother...

"He's adding things up, "I've worked myself to death and earned what I've got, but my brother has done nothing to earn anything, indeed he's merited only expulsion, and yet you lavish him with wealth! Where's the just in that?" (from Prodigal God by Timothy Keller).
The father makes known to the elder son his desire for him to join in the celebration of the lost son. We do not know what he chose. Jesus left the story open for the Pharisees to respond.

Will we accept God's ways over our own? Will we be happy for His will?
In a recent sermon at the Ligonier Conference, Burt Parsons said, ": "If you don't believe that Osama Bin Laden could be the elect of God, then you don't believe the gospel."

The Prodigal God Part 1

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

"Most readings of this parable have concentrated on the flight and return of the younger brother- the "Prodigal Son". That misses the real message of the story, however, because there are two brothers, each of whom represents a different way to be alienated from God, and a different way to seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven."

Two groups of people are present at this teaching..."Now the tax collectors and 'sinners' were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law..."

The younger brother is the sinner or tax collector. They have left "home" or "respectable society" to live however they want...wild living. The older brother is the religious leaders. "They held to the traditional morality of their upbringing. They studied and obeyed the Scripture. They worshiped faithfully and prayed constantly."

The sinners "were gathering" to listen to Jesus. The religious were scrutinizing every move Jesus made, in this case, why he was eating with sinners and tax collectors. It is in answer to this question that Jesus tells this story.

"Through this parable Jesus challenges what nearly everyone has ever thought about God, sin and salvation. His story reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother's moralistic life in the strongest terms. Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both life-paths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about how to connect to God has been wrong."

I love this quote!! "So whose side is Jesus on? In Lord of the Rings, when the hobbits ask the ancient Treebeard whose side he is on, he answers: 'I am not altogether on anybody's side, because nobody is altogether on my side...[But] there are some things, of course, whose side I'm altogether NOT on'."

"...religiously observant people were offended by Jesus, but those estranged from religious and moral observance were intrigued and attracted to him." (Luke 7, John 3-4, Luke 19 and Matthew 21:31) "If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think."

The Prodigal God

I have just finished my first reading of The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. I usually soak a book up slowly, but I felt compelled to keep reading to the end of the "story". As a result, I plan to go back through and process in order each point to ponder and hopefully blog as I go. If you have read this book before, PLEASE comment. If you haven't read this book, get the book and PLEASE comment. :-)

All I can say at this point is that according to Timothy Keller's explanation of the story of the Prodigal Son from the Scripture (he says more appropriately called The Story of the Two Sons), I find myself to have acted out the part of both the elder brother and the younger brother.

Until my next blog, I'll leave with this quote from Jonathan Edwards' sermon "A Divine and Supernatural Light".

"There is a difference between believing that God is holy and gracious, and having a new sense on the heart of the loveliness and beauty of that holiness and grace. The difference between believing that God is gracious and tasting that God is gracious is as different as having a rational belief that honey is sweet and ...having the actual sense of its sweetness."

3.8.10 The Hiding Place

Just this morning, I finished my first ever reading of The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom. This amazing book has left me with much to process, so I will likely just do more than one post.

The Hiding Place tells the story of the German invasion of Holland during WW II and the eventual arrests of the ten Boom family for hiding Jews in their home in order to feed them and keep them safe from being sent to a concentration camp or killed. Along the way Corrie ten Boom relays stories of how she learned to rely fully on God and spread the gospel even through imprisonment first in Holland, then in Germany.

My first thought this morning is of the person I am angry with for a wrong done last night. Simultanious with that anger though is Corrie being released from prison alone without her sister after all that was done to them. Sometime later, she met one of the guards (who had been at one of the prisons she was in) after one of her talks and he came up to her and thanked her for her message of God's forgiveness.

His hand was trust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people of Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.
I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again, I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
Corrie took his hand and was amazed at what she found...
And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.

I am not comparing myself against this precious lady, but am reminded how trivial what angered me was, and that God is willing and able to give me His love and forgiveness for others.

03.22.10 If my people...

I am still reading "Becoming a Man of Prayer". I was really struck hard today reading the section on praying for our country. 2 Chronicles 7:14 says:

If my people,
who are called by my name,
will humble THEMSELVES
and PRAY and SEEK MY FACE,
and turn from THEIR wicked ways,
then will I hear from heaven
and will forgive their sin
and will heal their land.

It struck me, we want God to "fix" our leaders, turn their decisions into what we believe is right for our nation, but maybe we are missing the most important thing that GOD says we should be praying. I am first to humble myself, pray, seek the Lord...confess MY sin....THEN will he hear from heaven and forgive and heal!!!! God's people!!!! We must humble ourselves before the Lord!!! If WE do this, he will forgive our sins and heal our land. I think we are looking at things upside down! We want God to fix THEM! He wants to fix HIS people!

2.24.10 Becoming a Man of Prayer

Ok, here's the laugh for you that I gave my children last night. "I'm on my way to becoming a Man of Prayer!" That was priceless. No really, I was looking for something on our shelves on prayer for me, when I found a Promise Keepers book called Becoming a Man of Prayer. I figured, well, prayer is prayer right? So, I have read the first two chapters and am very excited about it.



I guess part of prayer is developing a habit of taking "it to the Lord in prayer". So, Bob Beltz uses the Model Prayer (often called the Lord's Prayer) as a guide to developing a meaningful prayer life. I like what I've seen so far. He recommends to start by committing to pray for five minutes a day for five days, starting off by reading Luke 11:1-13 and one of Psalms 1-5 and then praying. This is just the start.

This is something I've struggled with for a long time. I know the lack of prayer has great consequences in my life. I am praying that the Lord will use this to open me up to all the many things that He would love for me to lay at His feet!

Sabina Wurmbrand

I am studying today about Sabina Wurmbrand, wife of Richard Wurmbrand and founders of Voice of the Martyrs. I knew of them before today, but am sad to say I was ignorant of their story (who ever said ignorance is bliss was wrong!). I am teaching a Missions class at our VBS this week. I picked up a book from VOM I've been wanting to read Hearts of Fire which tells Sabina's story. I also am reading a transcript of a talk she gave entitled In God's Beauty Parlor.

Sabina tells a story from her imprisonment. She said they read from the Bible, because they agreed to let the guards beat them if they could do this.

So we were Christians, but we had among us a lady, one of the riches ladies of Romania. She was not a Christian. She was in prison because her husband had been the political leader of the country. So she listened with us about all these things; about Stephen (ACTS 6:6-15). Then she said, “I wonder about you the Christians, you seem to be intelligent women, but how could you believe that Stephen, standing before his enemies knowing that he would be put to death. How could you believe it that his face could be so beautiful? In what beauty parlor could have he had been in order to have a face like the face of an angel in such a crisis, in such critical moments when he was before death?” A Christian lady answered, “I am sorry for you. You do not know Jesus, the Son of God. But whenever Jesus comes in a heart, he never comes alone, He always comes with all His richness. He comes with His angels. He comes with the glory of heaven and so when you open you heart and Jesus comes in your heart to be your Lord and Savior, He brings His beauty. And so Stephen could be so beautiful like an angel. And while we spoke at once the door opened, the Communist guard came directly to the place where we were gathered under the bed took us out all, gave a hard beating to everyone; bleeding with many hearts he threw us back in the prison cell. But we the Christians we knew what price we had to pay to read the Bible and to pray. But we were afraid for this lady who was not a Christian, how will she react and what would she say. And while were thinking about these things, the first one who came to speak with me was this rich, rich lady who now was poor and hungry bleeding all over the face which was smeared with blood and tears. She said, “Now I know the very fact that the Communists are persecuting the Christians, the very fact that they have beaten us only because we would speak about Jesus, this very fact for me is the best proof, that your God is God indeed. And your Jesus will be also my Jesus the Savor. And she did not know that now her face smeared with blood and with tears, shone and was beautiful like the face of an angel.

Childlight Conference 2008- Jason Fletcher: The Relational Paradigm of Christianity

I really must get this out before it is lost to me. At the recent Childlight Conference, I really enjoyed a plenary in which Jason Fletcher spoke on The Relational Paradigm of Christianity.
His talk really spoke to the need for us to realize that Relationships are at the center of everything of God: the trinity, his creation and so on. The following are from my notes of his talk.

The rise of social isolation has many roots issues. Some of these issues are: Poor condition of relationships, two income families, longer commutes and television.

We need a relational paradigm!

In the UK he says, they are worried more about people consuming the right things than doing the right things. People are more worried about relative wealth than total wealth (how wealthy they look, not how wealthy they are).

We need to redefine our goals for relationships. Christianity alone is capable. It's world view is relational through and through. God is relational (1 John-WITH GOD-plurality of relations). God never existed in isolation, you can only understand one member of the triune God in relation to the other two. Relating to others means no isolation. It is through others we become persons. If there is no sharing, there is no reality. All persons have relational needs: To be heard, to be wanted. True person hood is realized when we are others centered. In the Godhead we see perfect giving and receiving. The suffering in the absence of this unity is heard in Jesus' separation from God the Father during the Crucifixion "Why have you forsaken me?".

We find fulfillment in God.

It was "not good for Adam to be alone". But when Adam and Eve fell, dependence gave way to independence. Sin is a failure of relationship: To love God and love others. This is the subject of C S Lewis' The Great Divorce. But, still, one day we will see Him FACE TO FACE.

(me: I heard a pastor say recently, "Sin is what we do when are not fully satisfied in God".)

Christian Ethics: The Practical Application

It is about learning to give and receive.

Isaiah 6:6 God says, "I desire mercy more than sacrifice".

Matthew 23:23 Jesus says, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Micah 6:8 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Matthew 22:36-40 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:

"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

God wants us to cultivate STRONG relationships.

How should we think about relationships? Their are two key aspects: Relational values and relational conditions.

Relational values (are all aspects of love)

Loyalty (mercy, steadfast love) mentioned in the Word 242 times. Loyalty spurs on His relationship with Israel.

Righteousness, which is all about fulfilling demands of relationships with others. A righteous leader will provide justice. Each relationship is unique.

Justice is fixing wrongs.

Faithfulness, which again can be seen in His relationship with Israel.

Truthfulness, in our relationships

Mercy/Compassion: Zechariah speaks of "the tender mercy of our God"

Forgiveness: Jesus said we will be forgive as we forgive others. He used the illustration of the unforgiving servant.

Generosity- He is not just loyal, He is generous. Israel was to be generous as well.

Relational Conditions

Directness: (face to face) leads to greatest outcome a relationship. This is not to be confused with non-verbal email/text messaging, which is task oriented, not relational. How do we deal with interruptions? Jesus, when sought to help Jarius' daughter, dropped everything and went. We undervalue children and others by failing to give our full attention. With out face to face relationships, our success is limited.

Continuity: (Time) With out time, the depth to our relationships is limited. Our method of juggling time and lack of quantity of time with our children is at the expense of our relationship with them.

Multiplexity: The breadth of our knowledge about the other person. AVOID ONE DIMENSIONAL RELATIONSHIPS!

Parroting: Relationships must be two-way. There must be mutual respect. We must listen to the opinion of others before offering our decisions.

Commonality: A shared vision! A mom who took up gold just to be with dad.

Charlotte Mason on relationships

She believed children were born persons. Large classes would underplay relationship.

On being Merciful

My dh is preparing for a sermon and was sharing from Studies in the Sermon on the Mount by D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones Vol 1. It deals with the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. This is explaining: "Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy" Matthew 5:7


...I would like to take you again to the supreme example. Look at Him there upon the cross, who never sinned, who never did any harm to anyone, who came and preached the truth, who came to seek and save that which was lost. There He is, nailed and suffering agonies on that cross, and yet what does He say as He looks upon the people who are responsible for it? "Father, forgive them." Why? "For they know not what they do." It is not they, it is Satan; they are the victims; they are being governed and dominated by sin. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Now you and I are to become like that. Look at Stephen the martyr attaining to that. As they are stoning him, what does he say? He prays to his heavenly Father and cries, "Lay not this sin to their charge." "They do not know what they are going, Lord", says Stephen; "they are mad. They are mad because of sin; they do not understand me as Thy servant; they do not understand my Lord and Master; they are blinded by the god of this world; they do not know what they are doing. Lay not this sin to their charge. They are not responsible." He has pity upon them and is merciful with respect to them. And that, I say, is to be the condition of every one who is truly Christian. We are to feel a sense of sorrow for all who are helpless slaves of sin. That is to be our attitude towards people.

More from Calm My Anxious Heart

Ephesians 5:15-17
Be very careful, then, how you live-
not as unwise, but as wise, making the most
of every opportunity because the days
are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but
understand what the Lord's will is.

2 Timothy 1:12
For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able
to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.

Linda tells the story of a lady she calls Mattie who was very committed to the Lord. She had memorized many verses, but her life verse as 2 Timothy 1:12. Mattie grew older and her memory began to fade and she could no longer even remember the faces of her family. As they visited her in the nursing home she was still found quoting verses and especially 2 Timothy 1:12.

But with the passing of time, even parts of this most special verse began to slip away. "I know whom I have believed," she would say. "He is able to keep.....what I have committed...to Him." As Mattie grew weaker, the verse grew even shorter: "What I have committed...to Him."

As Mattie lay dying, her voice became so weak that her family had to strain to hear the whispered words. There was only one word left of her life verse: "Him." Mattie whispered it again and again as she neared the gates of heaven. "Him...Him...Him." He was all that was left. He was all that was needed. Her life focus was Him.

Calm My Anxious Heart By: Linda Dillow

Many women today are nearsighted, not in their eyesight but in their life focus. They don't know why they're here or where they're going. They drift like a ship without a rudder. Dr. Swenson, author of Margin, says that aimlessness is common: "Americans are notoriously shortsighted. We live in a state of myopic (nearsighted) mania that blurs the future. The horizon is never visible in the middle of a dust storm. But we must have a vision that extends beyond tomorrow. Living only from week to week is like a dot-to-dot life."

Often women without direction live not only dot-to-dot but on hold, waiting--for the right job, the right man, a baby. Waiting for the baby to grow up and leave home--waiting for something to give their life meaning. Their faulty focus makes contentment an impossible dream.

Psychologist William Marston asked three thousand people, "What do you have to live for?" He was shocked to discover that 94 percent were simply enduring the present while waiting for the future. Because I desire to be a woman of purpose, I often ask myself, "Linda, are you living life with a myopic focus? Are you in a waiting mode?"...

It was spring but it was summer I wanted; the warm days
and the great outdoors.
It was summer but it was fall I wanted; the colorful
leaves and the cool dry air.
It fall, but it was winter I wanted; the beautiful snow
and the joy of the holiday season.
It was now winter but it was spring I wanted; the warmth
and the blossoming of nature.
I was a child but it was adulthood I wanted; the freedom
and the respect.
I was twenty but it was thirty I wanted; to be mature and
sophisticated.
I was middle-aged but it was twenty I wanted; the youth
and the free spirit.
I was retired but it was middle-aged that I wanted; the
presence of mind without limitations.
My life was over but I never got what I wanted.

(written by a 14 yr old boy; quoted in message by Dr. Charles Swindoll, "Who gets the glory?"; quoted from Calm My Anxious Heart by: Linda Dillow)

That's the opposite of what God envisions for us. The Scriptures exhort us to walk wisely through this life.

Live life, then, with a due sense of responsibility,
not as [women] who do not know
the meaning [and purpose] of life but as those who do.
Make the best use of your time, despite all the evils
of these days. Don't be vague but grasp firmly
what you know to be the will of the Lord.
(Ephesians 5:15-17, PH)

We must live as women who know the meaning and purpose of life. As Goethe, the German philosopher, put it: "Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least". If we haven't chosen what we are living for, we're living life by default, acting out the scripts handed to us by family, other people's agendas, and the pressures of circumstances. This is not living as a woman who knows the meaning and purpose of life. But it's never too late to change your faulty focus.

From: Calm My Anxious heart by: Linda Dillow

Devotional- Thomas a Kempis

Vanity therefore it is, to seek after perishing riches, and to trust in them.

It is vanity to hunt after honors, and to climb to high degree.

It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh, and to labour for that which thou must afterward suffer more grievous punishment.

Vanity it is, to wish to live long, and to be careless to live well.

..."The eye is not satisfied with seeing, not the ear filled with hearing" Eccles. 1:8

Endeavor therefore to withdraw thy heart from the love of visible things,
and turn thyself to in invisible.

For they that follow their lusts, do stain their own consciences...

Romans 1:16-17

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, "But the righteous man shall live by faith".